REVIEW: HIGHROAD TO THE STAKE

By Michael Kunze

This is an extraordinary work of history. Michael Kunze is not the usual sort of historian, he is best known as a translator, but he studied history and wrote his thesis on the trial of the Papenheimer family. In due course he produced this work of one of Europe’s best-documented witch trials.

In the early 1600s Germany was spiraling toward all-out war between Protestants, Catholics, Imperial authority and independent principalities. Munich in the duchy of Bavaria was a center of the Counter Reformation, a place where Catholic intellectuals gathered at the ducal court to lay the groundwork for a new century. Into this came the Papenheimers, a family of itinerant septic-tank cleaners. An accusation by a thief they had some acquaintance with led authorities to arrest them on the charge of witchcraft. What followed was an atrocity of small-scale, yet savage, bestial cruelty. The Papenheimers became the focus of an effort to purge the troubled land of Satan’s influence. They were tortured with inhuman cruelty until they confessed a myriad of crimes. Even more unspeakable was their execution, carried out with demented brutality. Every act was meticulously documented and carefully authorized under the rule of law.

Kunze examines the world of the Papenhimers and their persecutors. His account considers the lives of beggars, thieves, travelling fold, lawyers, and nobles. Kunze does not shy away from the cruelties inflicted on the Papenheimers and others caught up in the withchunt. This is not an easy book to read, it took me well over a decade before I could bring myself to read it to the conclusion.

Kunze sticks closely to the facts, presenting them in a straightforward fashion. One almost senses a subtle message at work here. The 17th century permitted abominations like the Papenheimer trial despite the warnings of men troubled by the flawed logic and evident cruelty of witch hunting. For the most part witch-hunters were honored and rewarded. Indeed, given the seeming collective insanity that perpetrated the Thirty Years War, the witch hunters crimes are at least limited. Indeed, when Kunze wrote this in the early 1980s, the crimes of the Third Reich were living memory. There were yet men willing to shoot and kill people for the crime of crossing the Berlin Wall. Germany was still divided from the last global war and the common wisdom that the next, by no means an unthinkable occurrence, would annihilate mankind. In his own, understated way, Kunze throws a piercing light on the recurring moral questions of mankind.

-Dave Hardy

REVIEW: THE LION OF CAIRO

By Scott Oden

Scott Oden has built a reputation on historical thrillers such as Men of Bronze and Memnon, swashbuckling tales of adventure set in ancient times. In Lion of Cairo, Oden moves the action forward to Medieval Cairo as rival factions vie for power in murderous court intrigues while ambitious warlords oust with zealous Crusaders for supremacy over the Holy Land. All this occurs along with a strange cursed blade and a rather depraved necromantic villain in the mix.

Oden’s protagonist is Assad, the Emir of the Knife, a Hashashin, or an assassin as commonly known. Assad is no hired sword, he is a hitman with a cause, a deadly secret agent for the mysterious Lord of Alamut, the master of a radical sect that stands aloof from the mainstream of Islam. Assad’s mission is not simply murder, but to sway the ruler of Egypt into an alliance.

Oden recreates the Cairo of the caliphs with astonishing skill. I often felt I was gliding down the mean streets and marble palace halls of Cairo along with the beggars, pimps, thieves, spies, fanatics, harem girls, and killers that people this story.

Needless to say, a lot of blood gets spilled along the way. Though Oden acknowledges Robert E. Howard as his model, Lion of Cairo is often closer to film noir. Assad is less a Conan than a homicidal George Smiley, a very patient man who strikes only when ready. The feel of Lion is often closer to a serie noir than a Sword & Sorcery tale. The prevailing mood is paranoia as treachery and deceit are the order of the day.

When it comes down to it, the battles are furious and the heads fall with astonishing speed. Yet there is clearly room for a sequel. I am looking forward to it.

-Dave Hardy

ALEXANDER OF MACEDON

By Harold Lamb

Harold Lamb began his career writing historical fiction for top quality pulp magazines like Adventure and Argosy. In the process he became an expert on history and became known for his biographies of noted conquerors such as Genghis Khan, Hannibal, and Sulemein the Magnificent. In this work he tackles the life of Alexander the Great. The story is part novel, part straight history. In fact, it is far more novelistic in the opening chapters than the later parts as if Lamb found the family life of Alexander easier to treat in detail while the conquests and journeys called for a historian’s broad brush.

For myself, Alexander is a subject that never gets old. Lamb's biography of Alexander is an entertaining interpretation of the conqueror.

-Dave Hardy

Alexander of Macedon

THE DESERT OF SOULS

By Howard Andrew Jones

If you are a fan of Harold Lamb, Howard Andrew Jones should be a familiar name. Jones is the editor of the Bison Book series of Harold Lamb’s adventure tales of Cossacks, Crusaders, Mongols, Rajputs, and all manner of swashbucklers. One of the hallmarks of Lamb’s fiction is his sharply drawn historical Asian settings. As an author Jones follows in that tradition while treating his readers to a fantasy of generous proportions.

Desert of Souls’s narrator is Asim, a doughty warrior in Sword & Sorcery tradition. Asim’s comrade is Dabir, a scholar of arcane knowledge. A chance encounter in the Baghdad’s marketplace sends them on a quest for a lost city in order to prevent a wizard from utilizing the dangerous magical secrets hidden there.

Desert of Souls is a novel that isn’t exactly easily classified. It is a fantasy that takes its inspiration from the classic Arabian Nights, yet it is not a naïve fantasy for children that one might expect from source material that has been so relentlessly tamed and sugar-coated. Rather Jones crafts his own characters while staying true to the setting. Asim and Dabir serve in the household of Jaffar the Barmecide, the historical wazir of Harun al-Rashid (763-806) the third Abbasid caliph in Baghdad’s Golden Age. If Desert of Souls is rooted in history and traditional legend, it flowers in a modern manner. Betrayal and mistrust are at the heart of all relationships ever striving with friendship and loyalty. It is an if Jones layered in a 1950s noir crime film with the hard-charging adventure. Of course the old Arab storytellers understood human frailty very well, the original Arabian Nights are thick with every species of treachery, oppression, and kanvery ever practiced. The cinematic comparisons don’t end just there, Desert of Souls has the kind of wide-screen cinematic destruction that we expect from a good disaster movie. Finally, there is an echo of the 21st century in Desert of Souls, just as in the current world of terrorism and political violence, so too in Jones's tale personal motives—revenge, lust for power—mingle with religious and ethnic fanaticism.

Desert of Souls has a lot to offer, characters with depth, a setting that is at once believably real and filled with wonders, fast-paced adventure, and excellent story telling.

-Dave Hardy

THE HISTORIES

By Herodotus of Miletus

Herodotus of Miletus was known to the Ancient Greeks as the Father of History, he was also known as the Father of Lies. Either way, he was Big Daddy.

Prior to Herodotus, writing was a practical affair. A few pioneers had transcribed old poems by Homer or the stories of the gods or had composed original works on science. Herodotus took it to a new level with a sustained narrative that begins with the known world as its scope and drives to the remarkable Greek defeat of the Persian Invasion in 480 BC.

Herodotus gives the background of the rise of Persia along with ethnographical accounts (some of the world’s earliest) of the tribes the Persians and Greeks came in contact with in their rise to power. A seemingly minor revolt by the Ionian Greeks drew the mainland Greeks into conflict with Persia. The result was the invasion repelled at Marathon. This defeat of Persian arms could not go unavenged and in 481 BC King Xerxes set out in personal command of a massive invasion force.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a lot of dull homework. Herodotus was all about a good story. He has tall tales of gold-guarding griffins in Asia (and giant gold-digging ants). He brings the wild Skythians to life in a vivid portrait of these proud and warlike barbarians. The battles of Thermopyle, Salamis, and Plataea are related, often with first-hand information, in scenes that make Ancient warfare come to life. Above all this is the tale of the Greeks’ seemingly suicidal defiance of the world’s mightiest empire, in the name of liberty. If you like tales with larger-than-life heroes, battles for the ultimate stakes, and a gripping narrative, this is a book for you.
-Dave Hardy

REVIEW: THE GANGS OF NEW YORK

By Herbert Asbury

Subtitled “An informal history of the underworld” this is Herbert Asbury’s best-known and perhaps most important work. Asbury made his career by writing the secret history of America’s big cities, the scandalous underbelly you never get to see in the official, "chamber of commerce approved" version.

If you’ve seen the movie by Martin Scorsese (with stellar performances by Daniel Day Lewis, Leo DiCaprio, and Cameron Diaz) here is a chance to see what that was based on. Asbury begins with the grim and dangerous slums of the Five-Points (and especially the Old Brewery) in the pre-Civil War era. This is legendary country where Paul Bunyon-like characters mingle with real life ward heelers. The life and death of Bill the Butcher Poole is recounted along with the bloody draft riots.

Asbury follows the nexus of street gangs and politics through the post war decades when Jewish and Italian immigrants began to displace the Irish and Germans. The fearsome confederacy of outlaws called the Whyos dominated New York in the 1870s from their hangout at a saloon called the Morgue. Asbury fills us in on the river pirates and the brothels. He tells of the day in August 1903 when hundreds of gangsters from the Monk Eastman gang shot it out with the Italians from the Five Points. Baboon Riley, Gyp the Blood, Hell-Cat Maggie, Gallus Mag, Humpty Jackson, Yoski Nigger, and Kid Twist are just a few of the strange and colorful characters who drifted through Old New York’s streets. The Daybreak Boys, the Gophers, the Dead Rabbits, the Roach Guards and Plug Uglies were once as powerful and deadly as the Crips, Latin Kings, or the Cosa Nostra.

Asbury’s work ends before the rise of the Syndicate as an interstate combination of organized crime (he originally published this in 1927). For anyone trying to understand the origins of modern organized crime this is essential reading. Even if you aren’t, it is still the fascinating story of the dark side of a great American city.

-Dave Hardy

REVIEW: THE EMPIRE OF THE STEPPES

By Rene Grousset

This masterful history by one of France’s most distinguished scholars piqued my youthful interest with its tales of wild tribes in remote places of Asia. I still keep The Empire of the Steppes on my shelf as a reference work and simply as an interesting read.

Rene Grousset was what used to be called an Orientalist, before Edward Said made that a dirty word. His specialty was Asian history. Here he tackles no less than 3,000 years of Central Asian history. He sketches the ongoing clash of Nomad Hordes vs. Civilization (Skythians vs. Assyria, Huns vs. Rome, Persia, India & China, Mongols vs The World) with special attention to the notable conquerors. Attila, Jenghis Khan, and Tamerlane all get close attention. But Grousset also looks at how nomad groups such as the Magyars, Turks, Moguls, and Manchu changed from hostile marauders to members of the civilizations they once attacked and even the defenders of civilization against other waves of barbarian invaders.

Though often dry, and forced to compress vast amounts of history into small packages, Grousset still allows himself flourishes. You can read Empire of the Steppes and see for yourself why Harold Lamb and Robert E. Howard were fascinated the turbulent, destructive, warlike, and creative peoples of the Central Asian Steppes.

-Dave Hardy

 

 

THE CONQUEST OF NEW SPAIN

By Bernal Diaz

This is a grunt’s eye view of Cortes’ conquest of Mexico. Bernal Diaz was a gentleman soldier who came to the New World to seek his fortune. He saw Spain’s greatest conquest at first hand in all its grit, glory, and gory excess. The book is not exactly an apologia, few thought an apology necessary at the time. Rather it was written to set the record straight regarding other Spanish chroniclers who Diaz felt had distorted Cortes' record.

Diaz was not much of a stylist and translator JM Cohen has cut down the narrative to a manageable size. What is left has the immediacy of vivid, first-hand recollections. Diaz probably spared the reader quite a bit, but what he put in can be horrid enough. He describes Spanish soldiers using fat from Indians’ corpses to make grease for their weapons. Along with the greed, inhumanity, and fanaticism there are human touches. He describes Montezuma (who Diaz guarded) as a kindly gentleman, who offered to arrange marriages for his captors with Aztec ladies, an offer Diaz accepted. The friars are present always, and Diaz describes how they often moderated demands for immediate, forcible conversion. Perhaps it was respect, but it was also pragmatism. There were a lot of pagans, and not all were ill-disposed to the Spanish, but would be if pushed.

Diaz is a man who was born in the Middle Ages and helped create the Modern Era. This isn’t just the story of exploration, or conquest, or adventure, or genocide. It is literally a day-by-day account of how the world, for better or worse, changed.

 

-Dave Hardy

 

 

THE BUCCANEERS OF AMERICA

By Alexander Exquemelin

No it’s not about an NFL team from Tampa, it’s about swaggering, cut-throat desperadoes who terrorized all in their path. No, I don’t mean the creative team that brought you Gigli either, I mean real pirates.

Alexander Exquemelin was a young Dutchman who went to the West Indies as an indentured servant, a slave with a contract that is. Finding the life of  a servant brutal, he went off to join the buccaneers, roving bands that hunted wild cattle in the interior of Hispaniola (nowadays Haiti & the Dominican Republic). These men were in constant conflict with the Spanish and many had taken to the sea to rob passing ships. In Exquemelin’s day they had grown strong enough that under leaders like L’Ollonais, Rock Brasiliano, Bartholomew the Portuguese, and Captain Henry Morgan, that they could form powerful fleets capable of seizing major cities and pillaging extensively.

Exquemelin gives us a unique first hand account of the hardships of frontier life in the West Indies. He is concise but there is a wealth of detail about the plants and animals, daily life among the colonists, and the trades they engaged in (besides armed robbery). Above all this is an account of the most notorious buccaneer chiefs and their war against the Spanish Main. The portraits of L’Ollonais and Morgan dominate the book. L’Ollonais is shown as a sociopath, practicing savage cruelty as matter of routine, but possessed of reckless personal courage in battle. Morgan comes across as a smooth, cozening rogue, but also as a man capable of using his abilities to unite disparate outlaw crews to undertake military campaigns of surprising strategic finesse and daring.

If you have any interest in piracy in the days of sail, you MUST read this book.

-Dave Hardy

 

 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PIRACY: PART FOUR

Is now online at Last Free Voice, this time the buccaneers. -Dave

Part Five went up this weekend. -dh

THE QUEEN’S CONJURER

By Benjamin Wooley

An account of the life and times of Elizabethan England’s foremost philosophical occultist. John Dee was a scholar so cutting edge that he went a bit over the edge. A brilliant man who boldly followed his curiosity wherever it led, Dee explored mapmaking, calendar reform, and astronomy. He also investigated alchemy and astrology, two subjects that Dee’s contemporaries believed to be as scientific, if not more so, than odd notions like Copernicus’s belief that the Earth orbited the Sun. It was spiritual communications and glass gazing that proved to be Dee’s downfall.

Dee came under the influence of one Edward Kelley. This young man was a skryer, one who gazed into a crystal ball and revealed hidden secrets, in this case messages from angels and spirits on how to translate the language of Adam and to find hidden treasure. Wooley meticulously documents just how much of a fraud Kelley was, for Kelley was definitely a fraud who took Dee for just about everything he had including his good name. The tale is s sordid one involving greedy kings, religious zealots, spies and con-men of every sort. The Queen’s Conjurer is a fascinating look at the occult underworld in Elizabethan times.

-Dave Hardy

A PRAGUE SUMMER

Today is the 40th Anniversary of the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia that ended the "Prague Spring" of political and intelectual openness that flourished briefly in 1968. I lived in Prague for a while and heard a lot of people's stories about the aftermath of the Prague Spring and the Soviet Invasion. Czech history is mostly about aftemaths I think. There was the aftermath of WWI and Independence, the aftermath of the Nazi takeover, the aftermath of the Communist takeover in 1948, the aftermath of the Soviet Invasion, the aftermath of the Velvet Revolution. Many peolpe were still working through the impact of '48 and '68 on their lives. They did so with a sense of irony forged by a history that had made a virtue of patience and resiliance.

One gentleman I knew spoke of his grandfather. He was condemned as "kulak"-he owned a farm- by the Communist authorities. The grandfather spent a year in jail. When his son, my friend's father, went to serve in the army he was designated as having a "bad class background." Recruits from politically undesirable origins had to serve, but weren't trusted with weapons. They tended to be sent to do work in fields that had a labor shortage, generally coal mining. But they were paid coal miner's wages, which weren't too bad. My friend's father was able to save money and buy a house for his father (the farm had of course been confiscated). He bought one on the western border where there was an abundance of unnocupied housing owing to the expulsion of the Germans that lived there.

One lady I knew told me about her parents. She was six in 1948 when her parents were sent to prison. Her father's crime was being a lawyer. She lived with her grandmother for six years until her mother was released. Her father did a full ten. If I recall corerctly she told me she didn't see him for about eight years.

In 1968 her sister was living in an apartment in Vysehrad, an old part of Prague just south of the city center on the east bank of the Vltava. When the Soviet troops occupied the city they imposed a curfew. One night they began firing wildly at nothing in particular. My friend's sister spent the night cowering on the floor, hoping not to get hit by a stray bullet. When dawn came my friend went over to help clean up and give moral support. They found only one bullet had entered the apartment. It had hit a book of Lenin's writings.

When I was in Prague it was a placid place. It stretched out along the river, busily tending its real estate, its art openings, its pubs (ah, Prague's wonderful pubs). The scars of the past were never too far away, laid on one another like layers. But there was always a fresh face on top looking to somethng new. And grumping about it. How I miss that dear, beautiful, frustrating, friendly, golden city.

-Dave Hardy